This post caught my eye. First of all, the poster is assuming quite a bit about the story. Nowhere in the story does it say either person turned themselves in, although it is true that sometimes an enslaved person would run away and hide for a few days and then come back. What I thought was really silly was the defense of slavery by the poster, such as, “he discovered the free life wasn’t ‘the green grass’ he had hoped for.”
And then there’s this gem: “We tiptoe because the thought of treating human beings as property like they were a stove or some inanimate object. But the truth is, they were regarded as VERY VALUABLE property that were ALSO human beings. It is a FALSE and MANIPULATIVE argument, to demean slavery as ‘making property of human beings’. Slavery – like voluntary and involuntary indenture – was an economic arrangement.”
You can read the rest if you can stomach it. The massive amount of ignorance displayed on that group is sometimes just appalling.
I’m reminded of this statement: “I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly, those who desire it for others. Whenever [I] hear any one, arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” [Abraham Lincoln, Speech to the One Hundred Fortieth Indiana Regiment, March 17, 1865, CWAL, Vol 7, p. 361]
Student of the American Civil War 
Again with the “part of their family” stuff.
Yes, part of the family they sell off to pay debt and give away as presents.
You mean like daughters were sometimes sold? I know usually dads had to pay others to agree to marry their daughters, but I have seen examples of daughters being sold off to men. :p
And I would ask if that would make you feel like a member of the family. 🙂
Sad and pathetic—but good work finding the citation for the Lincoln quote, which I recall being disputed in the past.
Just more of the usual attempts to make slavery look benign. It is amazing what those folks will do to justify the Confederacy and then lie like nailed down carpets when their version of the past gets questioned.
In some cases, though, they just don’t know any better, and their emotional attachment keeps them from believing anything different.
I always enjoy the comments, “You’re not from the South. You don’t understand.” “History is written by the victors.” or my recent personal favorite, “Academics don’t know real history.” Nothing like a complete contradiction from them.
If they didn’t have clichés, they wouldn’t have anything to say in the comments. 🙂
Slavery was an “economic arrangement”? Odd use of the term. When I was a boy and sex was still dirty, if two middle aged people living separately got together for non-romantic sex, they would be said to have “an arrangement.” Most definitions of the word involve some sort of a non-binding or informal agreement. Since slavery was enforced by law, involved no meeting of the minds, and was always to the disadvantage of the enslaved it could hardly be “an arrangement”.
Exactly, Pat. The term implies that the owner and the enslaved person came to a mutual agreement on their relative status. That goes with her claim about a runaway being unsatisfied with being free.